


Between Black and White

by eilidh17



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-12
Updated: 2016-07-12
Packaged: 2018-07-23 14:06:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7466250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eilidh17/pseuds/eilidh17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes it's takes something standing right in plain sight to reignite what once was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between Black and White

**Author's Note:**

  * For [svana_vrika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/svana_vrika/gifts).



**Between Black and White**

Jack knew exactly when it happened.  The very moment Daniel remembered his and Jack's past history.  A history that included their progression beyond friends and into a tumultuous relationship that came perilously close to destroying everything they had, including SG-1.  And Jack was pretty damn sure Daniel also remembered exactly whose fault it was. 

"With me," Jack said quickly, grabbing a clearly dazed Daniel by the shoulders and turning him away from the celebrations they had been invited to watch, and towards the nearest exit.  He caught Carter and Teal'c's attention and tilted his head towards the door, simultaneously letting them know they were leaving and that they didn't need help. 

"Daniel needs some air," he said to Carter over the radio as they left the Dodona meeting hall, ignoring the stares of some of the local villagers who had gathered for the show.  "Three comm clicks before you return."

The warmth of the hall gave way to the chill of the wintery afternoon air as Jack ushered a compliant Daniel in the direction of the Stargate, though not meaning to go the whole distance. 

"I told you this was a bad idea," he muttered sourly, as they made their way along the path until they hit a treeline that would lead them to the clearing the team had used as a base camp the previous evening.  "Damn cultural pursuits."

"Jack?"

"Not now, Daniel.  At least... _not yet_." 

The path left the treeline and spilled out in to the clearing, with their base camp nestled on the far side near a cluster of boulders that offered them some shelter from the wind.  Enough of the forest stood between them and the meeting hall to afford them some privacy and ample warning if someone came their way. 

"Okay..." came Daniel's mumbled reply, which told Jack the lights were on but Daniel was too busy thinking over his latest revelation to realize they were back at camp.  Jack lifted the flap to their tent and closed it as Daniel brushed past and flopped down on his sleeping bag, instantly rolling onto his side and away from Jack.

It wasn't as though Jack didn't know this moment would come.  And, really, of all the missions they had gone through since Daniel's return from ascension, this was the one that presented Daniel with the likeliest of triggers.

The address for this world came from the Abydos cartouche, and this visit was a return trip planned from the original mission that had taken place during Daniel's absence, time away, _ascension_.... 

Daniel already knew from the pre-mission briefing that the people of this world had their roots firmly planted in the Greek culture, but as the word _Dadona_ left his mouth Jack could almost see a row of light switches being flipped on in Daniel's mind.  Realization dawned, along with the pages of some invisible history book that opened up to let the likes of Homer and Odysseus fall out in a tumble of instantly remembered stories from some ancient era.  Jack recognized the names, but was left floundering and very much in silent awe as a small fragment of Daniel's lost memory was suddenly found. 

So the mission to P4G-181 was a go, and basic supplies were brought as trade for nothing more than being able to mingle with the locals and immerse themselves in their culture.  Jack called the mission a milk run.  A chance to fulfill the promise of a return made to the Dadonans while snatching some quiet team time on a friendly world.

There was not a Goa'uld in sight, which, considering the extent of the strip mining that had taken place here over thousands of years, leaving the land naked and bare, didn't surprise Jack in the least.  The people here had been abandoned long ago, their planet robbed of its valuable resources. 

According to Daniel, who reacquainted himself with the language like it had never been lost to him, the culture was only _mostly_ Greek with bits of this and that thrown in from other civilizations.  Probably visitors who came and decided to stay, thus blending their language and culture in with the locals.  Eh, it made sense to Jack, which was a small wonder in itself.  What Jack hadn't anticipated, but had been quite literally smacked in the face with, was the celebration that was underway when they arrived.  Some love ritual, he guessed from the amount of scantily clad men touching each other up like they'd been denied intimacy for the last year.  Carter didn't know where to look and finally decided to check out the intricate tile inlay designs on both the ceiling and the floor.  Teal'c barely batted an eyelid.  The big guy took in the scene as though this type of event was quite natural, which it probably was here. 

It wasn't until two men moved in Daniel's direction, one with his hands around the back of the others neck, while the other man had one hand on his partner's hip and the other on his butt, that Daniel got that far away look that came with a resurfacing memory.  Which was when Jack knew.  The lovers stance, their hands, it was his and Daniel's favorite position.  Pre-lovemaking.  Pre-make up sex.  Pre-a whole damn lot of things.  It was how they figured their arguments out, and it was the way Jack's arms rested on Daniel's shoulders and his fingers lanced over the top of Daniel's neck that was so familiar it hurt to remember.  And it most certainly hurt Daniel. 

"I'm sorry," spilled from Jack's mouth like words he had been waiting forever to say.  He _was_ sorry.  For all the words said in anger, for lies he had to makeup and then live with like they were the truth, and for not manning up and telling Daniel exactly what the problem was. 

"For what, Jack?  Admiring me?"

Jack didn't need a flashback to Daniel's deathbed conversation to remember his final words. What came out as "admire" should have been "love" but every second of Daniel's last moments were being documented for the records, and Jack didn't have the guts to say what he really meant.  _"Daniel."_

"Fuck," Daniel said in such a painful tone that Jack's mind forced him back to the infirmary, to when Daniel was convulsing under Carter's attempts to heal him.  And to the hopelessness he saw in Fraiser's eyes as she administered drugs to stop the pain and fitting.  Like it or not, if Daniel wasn't going to remind him of those hours then his mind definitely was.

"It was my fault, Daniel."

"For what?"  Daniel rolled onto his back and looked across at Jack.  "Me dying?  I'm pretty sure we crossed that bridge right after I returned.  You know... hashed out all the details.  No blame to be laid, no recriminations to be had, all that crap."

"You know what I'm talking about."

"Yeah."

"Slap in the face kinda thing?" Daniel's half laugh/half cough as he turned back on to his side was all the confirmation he needed. 

Jack could see the pieces of Daniel's life slowly snapping into place for him.  Some fit perfectly, others were probably forcing themselves together because he had to make them fit.  And if Jack was right, the memory of 'them' was probably being clobbered together with some imagined sledgehammer that Daniel was mentally wielding with as much force as he could, because the only relationship memories he had recovered and shared thus far involved Sha're.  Not Jack.

"Were we ever happy?" Daniel asked after a few moments of silence.

"I like to think we were."

"You _like_ to think?  You say that like you don't actually know."

"How about more often than not?  I'm not going to lie to you and tell you we had it great."

" _Lie_..."

"No can do, not this time."

"No, no. But you did, though, back then."  Daniel rolled to face him.  "Didn't you?"

"Is that a question or do you actually remember?"

"It's more an awareness that if everything had been great between us then the memories _of_ us would have surfaced a lot sooner."

"Makes sense.  I guess--"

"Actually, no... it doesn't, because what my mind is showing me and what my heart is letting me feel aren't the same.  You lied."

Didn't he know it.  "I owned the lies, Daniel.  I took them that extra step and actually lived them as though they were truths!   We were great together.  We danced around 'don't ask, don't tell' and hid our relationship so well that even Carter and Teal'c didn't have a clue.  Right up until the NID got the ear of the President and forced a new mandate on the SGC."

"And?"

"And then I lied, because it was easier to have you angry at me on a personal level than a professional one."

"There's a difference?"

"I thought so at the time.  Powers higher than Hammond decided your department was largely expendable.  There was a greater need for defensive weapons and technology, and what value your team had could be handled externally through the research department at Area 51.   So, with each lie, each change of orders I knew would affect your position within the program, I backed further and further away from us because I didn't want to hurt you."

"Hurt me?"  A flicker of anger crossed Daniel's face briefly. "Call me memory challenged, but I do actually remember enough to know the NID had been sticking their nose into our research and procurement policies for years before I contemplated defusing a naquadria bomb."

"You want credit for that!"

"The bomb?  No recriminations, remember?"

"Not the bomb.  For knowing, Daniel!  You were told just enough to keep you active and in the field.  Hell, if the NID had their way you would have been riding a desk in some backwater R&D hanger in Nevada.  It was all Hammond and I could do to keep hold of you."

"Something you obviously didn't think I was worthy of knowing."

"So we _are_ going to fight about this."

"You asked about what I remember?  This, Jack..." Daniel waved a hand back and forth between them, face twisted in a grimace.  "This, you and me arguing.  That's what I remember!  I see us together as a couple but the emotions playing over the images are all wrong."

"I'm sorry."

"So you said."

"So I am!  I can't fix what I broke.  Hell, I'm not even sure I can make it up to you."

"You can't," Daniel said in a resigned tone, closing his eyes against a pain that Jack felt responsible for.  "But I guess it goes a long way to explain the way you've been since I came back."

"What way is that?"

"Distant.  Almost as though you were taking a step back from me."

"You were different.  Changed."

"I think that's called confusion.  You know, when you believe you've done something wrong to warrant being dumped back into humanity without your memory, but then the one person you're sure you can trust suddenly puts you at arm's length."

"I said you weren't the problem." 

"How the hell was I supposed to know?  That whole affair with Bra'tac and Ry'ac turned in to you snapping at me for whatever reason seemed to suit you at the time.  I may not remember everything, but I do remember a time when what I had to say actually carried some weight with you.  Wasn't always mission critical, but you at least learned to listen."

Jack had listened.  Even when Daniel's suggestions put him at odds with the ever-changing needs of the SGC, and even when Jack knew that lending an ear was all he could offer because people higher up than him were tightening the command screws.

"I listened then and I'm listening now.  It may have taken me a while to accept, but the you we lost and the you we got back were--"

"Not the same?"

"You're more sure of yourself.  Hell, you solved the problem with Bra'tac and Ry'ac without any help from me.  If anything, I was the fourth wheel in a mission that had already been planned out while I was off reading emails!" 

"So you weren't The Man for a moment and you didn't like it."

"Think of it more as recruiting a soldier with skills that don't appear on his personnel file."

"I am _not_ a soldier."

"Yeah, well, the jury is still out on that one."

Daniel sat up and drew his knees to his chest.  "So, where does this leave us?"

"Where do you want to be?"

"As in SG-1?"

"For a smart guy you can be dumb sometimes."

"Thank you for that," Daniel said sarcastically.  "How about we settle for me not knowing the boundaries anymore?  I remember us, the good and the bad, and, yes, probably not everything I should.  And I remember we didn't fall into our relationship lightly or quickly."

"What else?"

"I remember being with you."

Jack's chest tightened at the memory of one of their many moments together but he managed to hold his composure.  "We were good together."

"I remember your hands on the back of my neck."

"It was the only thing that calmed you down when things were going wrong."

"Apparently, they went wrong a lot."

"They also went right.  Look, Daniel, either everything will come back to you or it won't, and I don't know how much help I can be if you can't find a balance between the two," Jack conceded honestly, fighting against of tide of guilt at how the last year of their relationship had gone, and yet desperately wanting Daniel back in his life, his bed... his arms.  The guilt wasn't all his, but he had sleeves enough to wear it for both of them.  "No more than I can promise there won't be bad in our future again, whether we're together or not."

Daniel smiled around a yawn and blinked a few times, smothering the yawn with the back of his right hand.  "So you're saying you don't want our past to define our future?"

"Assuming you want a future with me in it.  I can be a bastard sometimes."

"I'm sure I wasn't exactly perfect."

"You were to me." Jack shrugged and smiled.  "Still are."

"And then there's your bad knees."

"Ah! Nothing much has changed there."

"At least it explains why the memories I have of us together always have me on top."

"Eh, so you liked to go all Alpha on me... sometimes."

"Only sometimes?"

The witty retort sitting on the tip of Jack's tongue was cut short by three clicks from his radio.  Daniel stared at it for a second, confused. 

"I told Carter to click the comm when the shindig was done."

"Shindig?  Not exactly an appropriate title for a fertility ritual.  They spread seed on the land and fertilize it with--"

"Aht!"  Jack raised a finger in the air and waggled it from side to side.  "Let's just call it a shindig and hope the fertilizing is all done by morning."

"What?  You have a problem with the sight of men pleasuring men in the name of tradition?"

The temperature was falling even further outside as night descended on Dodona.  Tomorrow, there would be discussions about water filtration and seed storage.  All the important stuff that happened when allies were made and returned visits generally meant more than sharing a meal and discussing cultural diversities with a race of people still coming to terms with the notion of fair trade. 

"No, Daniel, I do not.  The only man I want to see being pleasured is you... and by me.  Right now, though, I'm thinking you should get some shuteye because when Carter gets back I'm sure she's going to want to regale us with exactly how much fertilizing went on while we were gone."

"You could just ask her to write it up in her report."

"Or I could take notes for future reference.  Learn a new technique or two."

"I hope she remembered to take pictures, maybe a recording."  With a smile that Jack had genuinely missed, Daniel unlaced his boots and toed them off.  "I've missed us, Jack," he said slipping into his sleeping bag and turning back towards the tent wall.

Jack reached out and placed his left hand on the back of Daniel's neck, feeling the muscles there so tight with tension, quickly relax under his touch.   "Me too, Daniel.  Me too."

The End

**Author's Note:**

> Requirement (#1): exclusive, loving relationship (prefer first time, but love established, too)  
> Requirement (#2): no non-canon character abuse or death  
> Optional Request: post ascension  
> Restriction (#1): no dark/angst  
> Restriction (#2): stay within the SG-1 ‘verse or post series, please
> 
> Thanks to denndj and magnavox_23 for their help and cheer-leading!
> 
> Svana, darling, I know you said no angst but I'm hoping once you read this you'll understand...


End file.
